Questions and Answers

Hi Ben! My friend and I are planning a trip to Australia, and we have a bunch of Ultimate Rewards points we’d like to use (~150K and ~220K, to be more precise). I would prefer to avoid flying United (not for fear of getting dragged off the plane, but I just don’t like them very much), but I’m not completely opposed to United. We would also prefer direct flights and would love to fly business, if possible. Wondering what the best way to go about booking this trip would be and which airline would give us the most bang for our buck given the points we have. Thanks!

Award space to Australia, especially direct, is one of the hardest to come by for points flyers. I would not be picky about anything that shows up for your dates. Start with the LAX/SFO wikipedia pages to see who flies direct to Australian destinations. You can then search for award space on those flights to see if anything is available. If not, you’ll likely need to look for one stop itineraries through Asia. [URL]https://www.travelcodex.com/award-maximizer/[/URL] and [URL]http://www.milez.biz/en/index.php[/URL] are good tools for looking up mileage prices. Good luck!

I’ve come around to united a little bit lately. Dreamliner to Australia pretty good!! Direct too. For a longer trip Ana flies to Australia via Tokyo. Can often find on ua.com

Last year I flew San Fran to Singapore business then suites to Australia which was prettttttty awesome. Prob is you have to commit to transferring points and waitlisitng (for the large part). Asiana also does la Seoul Sydney. Think the last leg angled flat bed in business though

Btw award availability does turn up but mostly week of